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by Susan Smith - Managing EditorEach AEC Weekly Review delivers to its readers news concerning the latest developments in the AEC industry, AEC product and company news, featured downloads, customer wins, and coming events, along with a selection of other articles that we feel you might find interesting. Brought to you by AECCafe.com. If we miss a story or subject that you feel deserves to be included, or you just want to suggest a future topic, please contact us! Questions? Feedback? Click here. Thank you!

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AECWeekly is a news magazine featuring important industry news profiles, a summary of recently published AEC product and company news, customer wins, and coming events. Brought to you by AECCafe.

AECWeekly examines select top news each week, picks out worthwhile reading from around the web, and special interest items you might not find elsewhere. This issue will feature Industry News, Announcements, New Products, and Upcoming Events.

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Cimmetry Systems’ core product AutoVue visualization solution has evolved since the company opened its doors in 1988. The product supports over 450 formats natively, which means that there is no conversion process.

AutoVue was created to address the inability of companies to share information outside the engineering department. What was needed was a practical solution to break down the wall that surrounds the engineering department and liberate technical data that also minimizes training support and IT maintenance.

According to Celine Beck of Cimmetry, by using an integrated system like AutoVue and a backend system like SharePoint, people have access to this data and use it for decision making. The solution is available as a desktop or web application.

During the conversion, translation process, data can be lost or errors can happen. AutoVue is based on the original file so no data loss is possible, while it has full access to the intelligence of the file.

There are different types of AutoVue:

- AutoVue Office – for non CAD users

- AutoVue 2D and 2D Professional - Professional includes markup and collaboration capabilities.

- A suite for 3D products that target each different industry. “Advanced” is for high end packages.

Beck said that AutoVue does not support BIM at this point. Cimmetry has developed its own integrations called VueLinks, with several backend systems like MatrixOne, SAP, SharePoint, and makes available a Software Development Kit, which allows organizations to build their own integrations.

Cimmetry Vue Link is the company’s own integration with a back end system within their PLM system. The SDK allows you to develop your own integration systems for homegrown systems or other PLM for which Cimmetry does not provide integration systems.

AutoVue 19.2, released in July, focuses on performance, support, and has the latest versions for AutoCAD and several of the most common CAD formats.

AutoVue’s key benefits include:

- increasing productivity because you can standardize document design review, you can markup your documents, share and communicate feedback easily throughout the organization, include partners in the process, and leverage productivity throughout organization.

- You can protect your intellectual property as the original document never leaves the server, the original document is never released to the client, and markups and feedback don’t alter the original document. Rather, they are saved on top of the original file so they never alter the document integrity. Without having to do conversion, you have a simpler infrastructure, one set of data to manage, and you can start viewing documents without translating documents into original format.

Jeff Singer, team leader of the Solutions Group said that the desktop edition can be installed on computers by the users themselves. Actually, an installation on the server side is needed, that's it. With AutoVue Web Edition, users can then access, view and review documents from their Web browser. This is most useful for users storing documents centrally so they don’t have to email files around. They can view native files without having to do a conversion process.

Singer said the view capability is very much like that of PDF: you can have three levels of detail, search for text and extract text out of a file. You can also search for text in a Word or spreadsheet file, and search through a drawing to find text in the AutoCAD document.

The snapping capability is one of the more useful functions, according to Singer, because without having to do conversion you can view the actual AutoCAD data and snap to the different geometries. You don’t need to ask the engineer for a dimension, but rather can use intelligence stored in the document to get everything you need.

Another benefit of AutoVue is full access to all the layers. Users can add their comments, markup text and view a list of all users who added comments and when comments were added. The product essentially works the same way with 3D models.

Real time collaboration with AutoVue is similar to what is offered with AutoVue for SharePoint. Two users can connect from two separate buildings, cities, states, etc. User 1 has to communicate a problem to make a change, call, and initiate a real time collaboration session, add the problem to the session. The other user sees what User 1 sees. “Where this differs from Webex is we’re not pixel sharing,” explained Singer. “because if he’s onsite it’s a low bandwidth connection which is more efficient. What he’s opening is our stream intelligence from the server so he actually has the file open as well. It’s a lot faster.”

Announcements

Autodesk, Inc. announced the launch of its academic certification program for secondary and post-secondary students. The Autodesk academic certification program enables students to earn a credential in recognition of their knowledge of specific Autodesk software applications. The credential that students earn is the same credential that design professionals earn, but it is offered at an affordable academic price.

The

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and

Bentley Systems, Incorporated announced that Bentley collaborated with GSA on the development of "The Building Information Modeling (BIM) Guide Series 02 - Spatial Validation Program." The guide helps designers developing Final Concept designs for GSA's Public Buildings Services (PBS) meet GSA's spatial program BIM minimum requirements. The requirements include the submission of a BIM Industry Foundation Class (IFC) model as defined by the buildingSMART organization of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS).

IBT Enterprises, a leader in design, construction and consulting for the financial services and specialty retail industries, has joined the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

Simply Rhino Limited, the largest reseller of Rhinoceros® in the United Kingdom, announced Shape to Fabrication 2, an international architectural event, taking place October 25, 2007 at the London Metropolitan University in London, England.

For more information about the Shape to Fabrication 2 event, please visit:

Green Building Studio, Inc., announced the beta availability of Green Building Studio V3.0, offering architects, owners, and building design teams the opportunity to use the new web service's advanced capabilities firsthand. The new release updates the award-winning Green Building Studio web service with ground-breaking capabilities for assessing carbon neutrality potential, total PV & wind energy, emissions, total building energy, and water consumption for commercial and residential building design alternatives, interacting seamlessly with leading BIM design tools from Autodesk and Graphisoft.

People

Bradley E. Workman, vice president of global building and plant solutions for software firm Bentley Systems, Incorporated, has been named the Twenty-First Century Chair in Communications Technology in Construction at the University of Arkansas. In his new role Workman will assist school leaders and faculty to determine how the School of Architecture may best prepare students for integrated practice, a key trend that is revolutionizing building design and construction.

Three new employees have joined AIA to work on research, membership and technical operations.

Bill Chadwick is the new director of Research,

Dave Pauling is senior director of Technical Operations and

Michael Kibler is director of Membership Services. Chadwick comes to AIA from the U.S. International Trade Commission, where he spent 11 years as an analyst. He also worked in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Trade Resources Company, an economic consulting firm. Chadwick holds a master's degree in international commerce and policy from George Mason University and a bachelor's degree in economics from Virginia Tech, and studied at the University of Oxford in England.